'80% Chance' Mydoom Originated In Russia

Moscow - There is an 80 percent probability that the Mydoom computer worm - which as become the worst ever Internet epidemic - originated in Russia, according to a top Russian anti-virus firm.

The Russian security firm Kaspersky Labs said it had traced the first emails infected with Mydoom to addresses with Russian Internet providers.

"We have special software to monitor Internet traffic across the world. This detected that first emails infected by the worm came from Russian providers," the firm's spokesperson Denis Zenkin, told AFP.

"But there is a still a 20 percent chance that this was an attempt to mislead. Virus programmers from other countries could have registered an email address in Russia and transmitted their harmful programmes via it," he added.

'It had traced the first emails infected' Microsoft on Thursday offered a $250 000 (about R1,7-million) reward for information leading to the arrest and conviction of those responsible for unleashing the Mydoom.B worm that targets the software giant.

"This worm is a criminal attack," said Brad Smith, senior vice-president and general counsel at Microsoft.

Mydoom.B, detected on Wednesday, is a variant of the earlier released Mydoom.A worm, also known as the Novarg worm, which became the worst epidemic on the Internet. It installs a programme that directs infected computers to launch so-called denial-of-service attacks on Microsoft's main corporate website.

Mydoom spreads through email attachments and downloads from the popular Kazaa file-sharing service, which lets Internet surfers share content such as games, movies and music.

California-based Panda Software said Mydoom.A was still spreading rapidly, even though individual computer users may be seeing fewer infected emails.

'This worm is a criminal attack' It said one in every five emails is carrying this worm, making four million infected emails in circulation.

Kaspersky Labs describes itself as one of the world's top 10 anti-virus firms and has offices in nine countries including the United States, Germany, Britain, Japan and France. - Sapa-AFP

Prepare to meet Mydoom, with love from Russia

January 30 2004 at 02:36PM

Moscow - Russia is 80-percent likely to be the origin of the Mydoom computer worm, which has become the worst ever Internet epidemic, and could be an attempt to distribute spam mail, a top Russian anti-virus firm said on Friday.

The Russian security firm Kaspersky Labs said it had traced the first emails infected with Mydoom to addresses with Russian Internet providers.

"We have special software to monitor Internet traffic across the world. This detected that the first emails infected by the worm came from Russian providers," the firm's spokesperson, Denis Zenkin, said.

"But there is a still a 20-percent chance that this was an attempt to mislead. Virus programmers from other countries could have registered an email address in Russia and transmitted their harmful programmes via it," he added.

'This worm is a criminal attack' Microsoft and SCO, the owner of the Unix operating system, have together offered 450 000 dollars in rewards for information leading to the arrest and prosecution of Mydoom's creators.

"This worm is a criminal attack," said Brad Smith, senior vice-president and general counsel at the Microsoft software giant.

MyDoom.B, detected on Wednesday, is a variant of the earlier released MyDoom.A worm, also known as the Novarg worm, which became the worst epidemic on the Internet. It installs a program that directs infected computers to launch so-called denial-of-service attacks on Microsoft's main corporate website.

Mydoom spreads through email attachments and downloads from the popular Kazaa file-sharing service, which lets Internet surfers share content such as games, movies and music.

California's Panda Software said Mydoom.A was still spreading rapidly, even though individual computer users may be seeing fewer infected emails.

One in every five emails is carrying this worm It said one in every five emails is carrying this worm, making four million infected emails in circulation and slowing down Internet traffic around the world.

An expert from Kaspersky Labs, Alexander Gostiyev, told a press conference in Moscow that the creators of the virus were not aiming to disrupt Internet traffic but use infected computers to distribute unsolicited junk mail.

The attack "was very well planned and prepared, perhaps for several months and at least a thousand computers were infected in advance," Gostiyev said.

"The virus could be of use above all to criminal groups seeking to distribute spams," he added.

Another representative of the Internet security firm said that the generation of computer experts in Russia who unleashed viruses in the 1990s merely wanted to create havoc but this was no longer the case.

"The virus creators have moved onto a commercial footing. They are financed by groups which make their money from spam," Alexei Zernov said.

Kaspersky Labs describes itself as one of the world's top 10 anti-virus firms and has offices in nine countries including the United States, Germany, Britain, Japan and France.

According to the security firm, some 600 000 or so computers have been infected by the bug. - Sapa-AFP

I used to Administer a small domain connected to the large company domain. They brought in a security expert on computer crime to talk to us about security. He was an ex-FBI agent with 25 years in this field.

Very interesting talking to him. He said that computer hacking is legal in parts of Russia (St. Petersburg, IIRC) and that if you want something hacked you can go to the computer experts there who sell their services on contract. The Russian mob uses them extensively and so do people from outside the country. He said they are very good, and if they want to hack your system they will probably find a way to do it.

One other interesting thing was that Beijing University Computer Science dept. has as part of their graduation requirements you being able to show some level of expertise in computer hacking.

Of course, these countries may not realize that they are feeding the monster, and one day the monster may come back and bite them.

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